Musician Nurse Cycling Across Canada To Support David Suzuki Blue Dot Plan

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This very minute musician Derek Olive is cycling across Canada in the hopes that his efforts will eventually help Canadian citizens and the environment.

Olive, who spends his working days as an emergency room nurse, wanted to do something to make a difference. The result? A 10-city, 3000km music cycling tour to support the David Suzuki Foundation's Blue Dot movement.

"For all I was trying to do in my daily life, compost, ride my bike year round, recycle, buy used, buy local, don't buy, I was feeling that all my choices didn't matter and all I could do was complain," Olive said in a press release. "I decided that I needed to take action beyond my daily life; I started planning a music cycling tour to support the Blue Dot movement."

The Blue Dot movement is an ambitious multi-year legal campaign from the David Suzuki Foundation whose long-term goal is to have environmental protections enshrined in Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms via amendment.

These rights Blue Dot would like to see guaranteed for citizens include:

* Breathing clean air, drinking clean water, consuming safe food.
* Accessing nature.
* Knowing about pollutants released into the local environment.
* Participating in government decisions that will affect the environment.

Blue Dot's plan is to start locally. Thus far 77 separate Canadian municipal governments have passed declarations recognizing Canadian citizens' rights to fresh air, clean water and healthy food. From there Blue Dot will campaign to get provinces and territories to adopt environmental bills of rights. And after that, eventually, the federal government.

Olive's part in this involves raising funds and awareness for Blue Dot as he peddles towards performances from Vancouver to Montreal.

Cause Song of the Month:

HUGH MASEKELA, "Bring Him Back Home (Nelson Mandela)," 1987

South African jazz trumpeter and anti-apartheid crusader Hugh Masekela, who passed away today (Jan. 23) from prostate cancer at age 78, recorded 1987's "Bring Him Back Home (Nelson Mandela)" during his 30-year exile from his racially segregated homeland. Abroad, he had a No. 1 U.S. hit with "Grazing in the Grass;" performed on the Monterey Pop Festival; and recorded and toured with Paul Simon, among his successes. In 1990, when Mandela was finally released from prison after 27 years, Masekela returned home. In his statement upon Masekela's death, South African President Jacob Zuma said, "He kept the torch of freedom alive globally fighting apartheid through his music and mobilising international support for the struggle for liberation and raising awareness of the evils of apartheid." Buy the song here. — Karen Bliss

Charity Song of the Month:

GRAHAM COXON, "Falling," 2017

When Luke Daniel took his own life after a battle with chronic pain last year, his friend Graham Coxon from Blur recorded Daniel's song "Falling" to raise funds for suicide prevention. Proceeds from "Falling" will go towards an organization called CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably). CALM's goal is to prevent male suicide, which the organization says is the single biggest killer of men under the age of 45 in the U.K. Buy it here. — Aaron Brophy

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